Wednesday July 21, 2021
Very shaky 100 meter record
The mysterious fabulous time of Alex Wilson
With the completion of his Olympic preparation, the Swiss sprinter Alex Wilson set a new European record over 100 meters. His 9.84-second run immediately raises doubts – among experts and Wilson himself. One video is supposed to refute the fabulous time and another raises even more questions.
Has he now set the new 100-meter European record or not? Alex Wilson himself says that the question doesn’t really bother him anymore. Nevertheless, there was great confusion on Sunday when the 30-year-old unexpectedly shook a fabulous time up his sleeve. 9.84 seconds at 100 meters. After his run, he is said to have asked incredulously at a small meeting in Atlanta, USA: “Is it true, are you sure, is everything okay?”
The doubts even with the sprinter, they make a little suspicious. Just like the fact that Wilson pulverized his personal best with the run. It was 10.08 seconds, the old Swiss record. In preparation for the Olympics, he didn’t really attract attention with personal bests of 10.38 and 20.64 seconds over 200 meters. He also equalized the Swiss record over 200 meters on Sunday with 19.89 seconds. On the Swiss television broadcaster SRF he said after his return from the USA: “At the beginning I was shocked. It took me a moment to believe it. But it is the way it is. Why should I question the timekeeping.”
That even his advisor did that speaks volumes. On Monday, Andreas Hedinger told the Keystone-SDA news agency: “Immediately after the race, Alex thought that he might have run 10.10 seconds or at best 10.00, but never as fast as it did on the scoreboard in the stadium and in the rankings was to read “. He went on to explain: “At these appearances, I ask myself the same questions as you journalists. The athlete did not see himself in such good shape, even if he had prepared well.”
“Know that this is not possible”
Some experts saw that too. The renowned US coach Rana Reider tweeted directly: “We know 100 percent that it is not possible.” Laurent Meuwly, national coach in the Netherlands, also had his doubts. With the help of a (admittedly very shaky) video and several screenshots, he tried to prove that Wilson’s time was at best 10.3 seconds. The time table is said to have already stood in front of the finish line at those 10.3 seconds. Another slowed down version of the recording shows something similar: It can be seen that Wilson only crosses the finish line after the ten-second mark. It is also noticeable that the second had a time of 11.09 seconds. Wilson should therefore have had a lead of more than ten meters.
Wilson had already foreseen that his time would be good, as he later told SRF: “I knew that the conditions were perfect and the Swiss record could fall. I felt better than ever in a race.” His explanation of why he felt so good, it sounds a bit like maybe (too) simple math.
In an interview with the Swiss “Blick” he calculatedhow his fable time is made up. As a starting point he took his personal best of a little over ten seconds: “With two meters of tailwind that would be 9.80. I had 1.9 meters of tailwind measured, but maybe it was 2.5 – the wind is not always regular . ” Not only was the wind perfect, the rest couldn’t have been better either: “Then the train gives me a tenth, my new super shoes get another tenth. If all of this comes together, the 9.84 seconds are quite possible. “
So the sprint spikes, they too should have contributed to the fabulous time. They are his “secret weapon this season,” as he later said. It was already indicated in advance that they could become a bigger topic in Tokyo. The fastest person on earth, Usain Bolt, was already complainingthat the new generation of spikes is unfair. He couldn’t believe that they were allowed after all. With you, so he told the British Guardian, he could have run a time under 9.5 seconds.
An unfortunate video
Another thing, in contrast, remains forbidden: The doping allegation was raised just as quickly as Wilson ran, but there is no concrete reference to this. ARD expert Hajo Seppelt recently explained in an interview with ntv.de that the Olympic Games and the preparation this time are predestined for this regardless of Wilson: “Doping also has long-term effects.” In the past year and a half to two years, the pandemic has caused little or no doping controls in some areas of the world. It is noticeable “that in the last year records have tumbled in some sports, in athletics or cycling for example.”
The doping allegation at Wilson was also fired, that apparently a video appearedthat he should show him with coach Raymund Stewart, who is banned for life because of doping. In April it was created on the sidelines of a soccer tournament in Las Vegas, said Wilson in “Blick”. His coach drew his attention to the “legend”. Then Stewart showed him some exercises for ten minutes, Wilson explained. The fact that this image material appears now, of all times, makes the sprinter suspicious: “At the moment I think that someone is clearly trying to harm me.” He will now “pay more attention – what I eat and drink, what I touch, who I talk to”. He has nothing to do with doping, “it would be wrong to say that”.
The fact remains that Wilson’s sensational time has at least some doubts: The most likely will be the time measurement, which is questionable whether it meets international standards. Wilson doesn’t care anymore. He performed well, but he can’t influence whether the record is really a record anyway. When he set the Swiss record for the first time, the procedure at the association also took “six months”.
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